by Cassie Miles
“That’s right,” Maddox said. “Are you a man who knows horses?”
“I appreciate a fine thoroughbred. In the stables of Jamala, we have a matched set of gray Arabs, descended from horses that once belonged to King Farouk.” Nasim looked over his shoulder toward the two magnificent horses in the field. “Will you be racing them?”
“If I could find the right trainer, I’d take my Arabians all the way to the Kentucky Derby.”
Raising horses was expensive. Race horses, even more so. Saida wondered how Maddox could afford this ranch. Supposedly, he’d made lucrative deals when he was sheriff. What else would he do to raise money?
She asked, “May we look at your stables?”
Though Maddox was grinning, his close-set eyes were anything but welcoming. He stared at her with an unblinking intensity, sizing her up and trying to decide if she was a potential customer. “Are you looking to buy?”
As a princess, her interest in purchasing was seldom questioned. Anyone who dealt with royalty assumed that she was capable of purchasing anything her heart desired. The fact that Maddox had asked indicated a crass nature.
She put on her very best regal manner. “Perhaps I will see a horse that pleases me.”
Maddox hitched up his belt under his belly. “What do you think Jake Wolf would say if you bought a horse from me?”
“Sheriff Wolf’s opinion is unimportant.”
“Is that so?” He obviously didn’t believe her. “Don’t get me wrong, Princess, I’d be happy to sell you a pony or two, but you didn’t come here looking to buy. I’d wager that you didn’t even know I owned a horse ranch until you turned into my driveway.”
He was more perceptive than she’d expected—not intelligent but shrewd. She made one last attempt to avoid hostility. “Won’t you please show me around? If you refuse, I might think you have something to hide.”
“Jake sent you here,” he accused. “He knew I wouldn’t talk to him, so he sent you.”
“Sheriff Wolf doesn’t know I’m here.”
“Doesn’t know much of anything,” Maddox gloated. “At that press conference, I made him look like a damn fool. He’s been running around chasing his tail while I located the truck.”
Saida abandoned her flimsy pretense and confronted Maddox directly. “What made you suspect Granger?”
“For one thing, I know what he drives. That’s the difference between me and Jake. He doesn’t know his way around the county. Not like I do. I’ve lived here all my life. This is my land.”
“One might argue that these lands belonged to the Native Americans long before your ancestors settled here.”
“The Arapaho?” His upper lip curled in disgust. “Those Indians can’t even manage their own reservation. They don’t deserve to own land.”
Apparently, politically correctness wasn’t part of Maddox’s vocabulary. “Is that why you opposed Jake for sheriff? Because he’s Native American?”
“Sheriff is my job. Mine. I held that position for fifteen years. And I will be sheriff again.”
She thought of how seriously Jake took his responsibilities and how hard he worked. It was difficult to imagine how Maddox found time to be sheriff and run his horse ranch. “You already have a thriving business.”
“Damn right I do.”
“How do you find qualified employees?” she asked.
“I’ve only got three full-time people, including the housekeeper I had to hire when my wife moved back to Cheyenne to take care of her parents. Good riddance to her. I’m glad she’s gone.”
As the anger built inside him, he seemed to expand. His complexion turned mottled and ruddy. If Saida was going to get any useful information, she had to ask her questions quickly before he exploded. “Do you hire part-time help?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Did Chad Granger work for you?”
“I’m done talking.” He pointed toward the gate. “Get out. You foreigners are all alike. Think you’re better than us. Well, I got news for you, Princess. Real Americans—red-white-and-blue Americans like me—don’t like your kind. Get off my land.”
Red-white-and-blue idiots! She straightened her spine and retreated with her dignity intact. She hadn’t lost her cool, but Big Burt Maddox appeared to be on the verge of an epic eruption. He was an angry man, filled with hate. And, therefore, dangerous.
JAKE SHOULD HAVE BEEN angry when he heard about Saida’s visit to Maddox. But every single one of the COIN royals had meddled in his investigation. There was no stopping them, no point being outraged, especially since he liked Saida a whole lot better than any of the others. He wasn’t mad at her. Just concerned.
She needed his help, more than she knew. In his pocket, he carried the evidence he’d taken from the murder scene. Saida’s earring. He couldn’t stop thinking about her stolen Beretta.
He’d left his office around six, gone home for dinner and was grateful to find that Maggie had prepared a simple recipe—pork chops, veggies and corn bread. He helped himself and carried his plate to the dining room table.
His sister plunked herself down in the seat to his right. “What’s going on?”
He had the murder investigation orchestrated. The forensic people were analyzing fingerprints and trace evidence. The coroner had the body. Deputy Wheeler was doing follow-up interviews with potential witnesses, while the other deputies and local police searched for the missing sedan and for Chad Granger. The FBI Special Agent assigned to the case was pursuing an investigation into the background of the victim and his connections to Granger.
None of this was information that Maggie needed to know. Jake shrugged. “The usual.”
“Tell me about the dead man.”
“Not much to tell.” William Dormund was a man on the skids. A disbarred lawyer who had set himself up as a private investigator, he operated out of his duplex with a couple of file cabinets and a cell phone. “He’s from Cheyenne and used to be an attorney.”
“That’s not what I meant, Jake.” She punched his arm to get his full attention. “I want to know about your feelings.”
“I’m dealing with it, Maggie. One of the reasons I came home early was to make peace within myself.”
“If there’s anything I can do—”
“I’ll let you know.”
Neither of them practiced many of the Arapaho traditions, but they both believed that life was sacred. We are all connected, all born from the earth. A hunter offers thanks to his prey for providing meat. A farmer blesses the bounty of his fields before harvest.
Earlier today, Jake had stared into the sightless eyes of a murder victim. It was important for him to acknowledge that death, to pay attention to the passing of this man’s spirit.
Some years ago, when he was a cop in Cheyenne, Jake and his partner had been in pursuit of an armed suspect. They’d been fired upon. There had been no choice but to engage. Jake had shot the suspect in the chest and had held him while he breathed his last breath and the light inside him had been extinguished.
Taking a life had changed him. He would never become jaded. Death must always be treated with respect.
But he wasn’t about to talk about his feelings with his baby sister, even if she was a psychology major. He changed the topic. “Since the victim was in the legal community in Cheyenne, I contacted Oscar Pollack. He promised to ask around for me.”
Maggie brightened. “How’s Oscar?”
“Keeping busy at work, and his family is happy. Hard to believe that his twins are already in kindergarten.”
“I should zip down to Cheyenne and pay him a visit before I go back to school.”
Jake wouldn’t mind having Maggie out of the way until this investigation was over. “No problem. I can hire one of the teenagers next door to exercise the horses.”
“But I’d miss out on all this excitement.”
“Which reminds me,” he said, “Saida and Nasim are on their way over here. She wants us to go through the photos
that—”
“Saida is coming here?” Maggie stared down at her oversize T-shirt and baggy plaid boxers. “I’ve got to change clothes.”
She bolted from the table and raced upstairs. Being raised with sisters, Jake wasn’t surprised by her reaction. Though women asked for an opinion from their husband or mate, they usually dressed to impress other women. The only exception might be lingerie. Filmy gowns. Shimmering satin. Glowing silk.
His mind drifted to Saida. Maggie considered the princess to be a fashion icon, but he was more interested in what Saida would wear to bed. He imagined a see-through black robe over a lace bra and skimpy panties. Or something in a beige tone, like that naked shirt she’d worn the other day. Or nothing at all. She might be a woman who slept in the nude.
The fantasy occupied his mind and almost erased the ugly residue of the day. When he looked down, he realized that he’d finished every bite of his dinner.
He carried his plate to the kitchen and returned in time to answer the doorbell for Saida and Nasim.
The princess wasted no time with apologies. “I talked to Maddox, and he definitely has something to hide. I think Chad Granger worked for him part-time.”
“You’re right.”
Her caramel eyes opened wide. “Do you know for sure?”
“I sent Wheeler over to interview Maddox and the men who work at his ranch. Granger filled in part-time on a regular basis. But not for the past couple of weeks. They also confirmed that Granger recently came into money.”
“Speaking of money,” she said, “that beautiful horse ranch must cost a fortune to maintain. If Maddox needs cash, he might be willing to take a payoff.”
“He’s willing.”
“Do you have proof?”
“I wish I did. When Maddox was sheriff, he had his greedy fingers in a lot of lucrative deals. There were payoffs and bribes. And a lack of concrete evidence. He knows how to cover his tracks.”
Maggie bounded down the stairs in a fresh outfit that was purple and gray. As she approached Saida, she paused for half a second before enveloping the princess in a hug. After gushing over Saida’s jacket that looked like a pinstriped windbreaker to Jake, Maggie grabbed Nasim’s hand and pumped.
“Anybody hungry?” she asked.
“I appreciate your gracious offer,” Nasim said. “A most savory aroma emanates from your kitchen.”
“Follow me.”
Maggie drew the impeccably dressed bodyguard behind her like a pull toy on a string, leaving Jake and Saida together in the entryway. They were semialone. If he whispered her name, only she would hear him. If he reached toward her, he could glide his fingers through her silky black hair. He could kiss her. No one else would see.
Not that he intended to do any of those things.
She set her laptop on the dining room table. “I want to go through these photos that I got from Danny. There are several faces that appear repeatedly. Maddox is one of them.”
Her photographic evidence merited consideration, but there was another concern at the front of his mind. “Before we get started, there’s something I need to tell you.”
She looked up expectantly. “I’m guessing this isn’t good news.”
“Good guess.”
He reached into his pocket, took out the dime-size earring and held it between his fingers so she could see. “This is yours. I recognized the design.”
“I didn’t even know it was missing. Did it fall out of my luggage?”
He took her wrist, lifted her hand and placed the earring in the center of her palm. “I found it beside the murder victim.”
Her fingers clenched, but she didn’t pull away from him. He felt the tension in her wrist. Those fine bones were so delicate, so fragile.
Her gaze searched his face. “I don’t understand.”
Jake didn’t have a clear explanation. The murderer was sending a message. “Could be meant as a threat.”
“I’m already aware of the danger,” she said. “The truck that ran me off the road was kind of obvious.”
“It could be meant to throw suspicion on you. A piece of your jewelry is found near the victim. You’re implicated.”
“Am I a suspect?”
“Not in my book. At the time of death, you were with me. That’s a pretty solid alibi.”
“But you don’t control what other people think,” she said. “Maddox made it pretty clear that real Americans don’t like foreigners.”
“Maddox is an idiot.”
“There’s a simple explanation for why my earring was there. When the killer went through my luggage, he stole my earring.” She inhaled a sharp gasp. “And my Beretta. Oh, my God, Jake. Was my gun used to kill that man?”
The murder weapon hadn’t yet been found.
Chapter Thirteen
Saida didn’t want to believe that her gun had been used in the murder. A man’s life had ended because she brought that gun to Wyoming. The tension she’d held inside became a tremor, and she pulled her wrist from Jake’s grasp, not wanting him to notice her weakness.
“His name was William,” she remembered.
“William Dormund.”
She struggled to stay calm, but her pulse was racing. “This isn’t my fault. I didn’t pull the trigger. There’s no reason for me to feel guilty.”
“There’s a reason to feel,” he said.
“To feel what?”
“A man died. Respect should be paid.”
Death wasn’t something she liked to think about. She was only twenty-two and a princess. Her life was supposed to be a fairy tale filled with dances, parties and expensive things. But death wasn’t a stranger. Both her parents had passed away, and she’d lost other relatives and friends. She knew what it meant to grieve. But why should she be devastated by the murder of a man she’d never met?
This wasn’t the way she wanted the investigation to turn out. They should be moving forward, uncovering information that would lead to her brother.
When Maggie and Nasim came back into the dining room from the kitchen, Saida turned her head away so her bodyguard wouldn’t see that she was upset.
Jake spoke for her. “We’re going outside for a minute.”
“Something wrong?” Maggie asked.
Too many somethings to explain. Being implicated in a murder was just another knot in this tangled mess. Saida forced a smile. “We’ll be right back.”
Outside, she rested one hand on the railing. In the other, she held the black earring with the crossed sword design. “I just want to throw this thing and never see it again. But I don’t suppose that’s permitted. This is evidence.”
“Not exactly.” Jake stepped up beside her. “I found the earring. And I told no one.”
Surprised, she looked up at him. “You broke the chain of evidence?”
“Sometimes you have to do what’s right instead of what’s legal.”
She never would have thought that super-responsible Jake would venture outside the boundaries of police procedure. He’d violated the rules to protect her. Maybe he cared about her. She hoped it was so.
“How do you deal with it?” she asked. “The violence?”
He shrugged.
“I really want to know.” She hated this dark feeling of regret and undeserved guilt. “Police work shows you the very worst in people. You see the hatred and cruelty that leads to murder. How do you keep that from making you crazy?”
“I can show you.”
Was he talking about some kind of release exercise, like running or yelling at the top of his lungs or twirling like a dervish? Or maybe he wanted to show her something more personal. Maybe he was coming on to her, and that would be lovely. Their first kiss made her yearn for more. “I’m ready.”
WITHIN TWENTY MINUTES, Saida was astride one of Jake’s horses—a gray mare named Rainy. Though it had been a couple of years since she’d been riding and she wasn’t really dressed for this type of exercise in her low-heeled brogues and designer jacket, she fe
lt right at home in the saddle. Some things you never forget.
The problem was where to put her gun. If she stuffed her purse into a saddle bag, she wouldn’t be able to reach her weapon quickly enough to respond to a threat. She lengthened the strap on her purse and wore it across her chest. Not a fashionable solution but a practical one.
Her own appearance was secondary to watching Jake. He embodied every Western movie hero she’d ever seen. His flat-brimmed cowboy hat was pulled low on his forehead. His dusty boots stuck in the stirrups. He’d changed from his uniform into a denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He wore his handgun at his hip and carried a hunting rifle behind the saddle.
Jake was the opposite of the metrosexual men she usually dated. He was a real man, a manly man. Her friends in Beverly Hills would never believe someone like him existed. Subtly, she snuck her cell phone from her purse and took a couple photos. Did this make her a paparazzo?
Their only supplies were a couple of bottles of water which meant they wouldn’t be going far, but Jake hadn’t told her their destination. Anticipation buzzed through her; this was an adventure.
As they rode from the barn, Nasim and Maggie stood at the fence watching. An odd twosome, they had very little in common, but they fit together like salt and pepper. Nasim had immediately agreed when Jake said they were going for a ride, and Saida suspected that both he and Maggie were doing a bit of matchmaking.
She followed as Jake rode toward the fence. Maggie opened the gate. Smiling up at her brother, she spoke a few syllables that Saida didn’t understand.
“This way.” Jake motioned to her. “We have to stick to the road for half a mile to get to open land. Single file.”
She fell into line behind his big roan horse that was named Jimmy in honor of Jim Thorpe, the famous Native-American athlete who Jake claimed as one of his idols. Riding at the edge of the road seemed dangerous to her. They’d be vulnerable to an attack from a car. But Jake knew everyone; he exchanged waves with all the vehicles that went past them.
Nonetheless, she was relieved when they reached open land. Their horses ambled through a grassy field dotted with daisies and bright red wildflowers. In the distance, she saw the peaks of the Wind River Range. After living in California for so many years, she wasn’t accustomed to such a transparent, cloudless sky. The dry air brushed lightly against her skin.
